Paper
Aftercare in a Norwegian context
- issue: Issue 2 / 2010
- authors: Elisabeth Backe-Hansen
- keywords: services, outcomes, aftercare
- views: 4460
- downloaded: 0
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abstract
Background
It is well known that young people leaving care are at special risk for many types of marginalization. On the other hand we also know that prolonging services after the age of 18 improves the odds. What is the situation for Norwegian aftercare youth?
Purpose
The purpose of the presentation is to present and discuss results from two parts of an ongoing Norwegian study. The first part is longitudinal analyses of the Norwegian child welfare statistics between 1990 and 2005, comprising 120.000 persons, in conjunction with a matched comparison sample of 112.000 persons. These are administrative data, to which are added a series of other register data like educational attainment, income, social assistance, criminal records etc. The records are used to analyse various outcomes among the young adults formerly in public care compared to those who have never been clients. The outcomes are educational attainment, use of social assistance and employment, which are analysed in relation to type of child welfare career.
The second part is a presentation of a study of residential units and their way of organising aftercare, with data collected from relevant Norwegian institutions by Quest-Back (Internet-based). The data are a combination of quantitative and qualitative.
Key findings
The statistical analyses confirm earlier knowledge about the marginalization of former child welfare clients:
- They attain lower levels of education, they are more often unemployed, and they are more dependent on social assistance than the comparison group. The differences are highly significant.
- Aftercare does improve the odds.
- Girls do better than boys.
- Type of intervention matters. For instance, youth formerly in foster care do better than youth who have been in residential care. They also do better than youth who have received preventive services and not been looked after.
On the other hand, residential units vary with regard to how much resources they use on aftercare. Here one distinction is between private and public institutions. The private institutions use more resources, for example training flats, intensive follow-up etc.
Contact details
Elisabeth Backe-Hansen, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), P.O.Box 3223 Elisenberg, 0208 Oslo, Norway.
Email: ebh@nova.no
Tel: +4722541307